Poll: Why Australian censorship make absoloutly no sense

[MGlBlaze]

Yes: 3.9% (2)
Undecided: 7.8% (4)
No: 88.2% (45)

This... pretty much sums up the situation from Gamer's point of view. I'd really like to hear from the people who voted 'yes' on WHY they voted 'yes', but censoring video games and not movies, books, etc. is an ultimately fruitless and hypocritical endeavour. An R/18+ rating exists for a reason, and at the end of the day, it is up to parents to ensure their children do not play games they don't want them playing.

Also, let us consider all the people who do commit violent crimes and say it was because of games; in all likelihood they are merely using games as a scapegoat to either lessen their own sentence, take games down a peg with them for the hell of it, or both. And those who genuinely are influenced by games undoubtedly had serious problems to begin with.

And as I have said again, there is no point in censoring games, and only games. The children you are trying to 'protect' (You really aren't doing anything beneficial by censoring things like this, anyway) could still see extremely violent scenes in movies, or read about it in a particularly gruesome book.

Not to mention the censorship ends up effecting the people who SHOULD be able to view/get the material if they were so inclined to do so.

To put it into a newspaper-headline kind of summary;
Well-Intentioned But Ignorant And Ultimately Pointless.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Censorship, when it comes to art of any type, sucks ass.

The only things that should unquestionably be censored are religious propaganda (i.e. Creationism and Islamic vomit), trolls on the Internet and any kind of factual inaccuracies in general.

 

[MGlBlaze]

Censorship, when it comes to art of any type, sucks ass.

The only things that should unquestionably be censored are religious propaganda (i.e. Creationism and Islamic vomit), trolls on the Internet and any kind of factual inaccuracies in general.

Basically things that have to positive use for anyone and detriments people in general? Amen to that.

Parodies of such things should still be allowed, though, since they're usually funny.

 

[Jaythulhu]

Yes: 3.9% (2)
Undecided: 7.8% (4)
No: 88.2% (45)

This... pretty much sums up the situation from Gamer's point of view. I'd really like to hear from the people who voted 'yes' on WHY they voted 'yes', but censoring video games and not movies, books, etc. is an ultimately fruitless and hypocritical endeavour. An R/18+ rating exists for a reason, and at the end of the day, it is up to parents to ensure their children do not play games they don't want them playing.

Theoretically. Parents here are far too busy being self-absorbed though, and so they prefer to ***** at the government until it caves in. The main reason given for not introducing an R18+ category is "Kids will play them. They'll go online and download them and parents won't know about it."

My response has always been "Well, a) if you can't trust your kid not to download and play inappropriate games, why do you let him have a computer in his bedroom and, b) downloading games is piracy, which is classified as theft and is a major crime, with a significant impact on our economy. It is entirely your responsibility to make sure your child is only playing games appropriate to their age and not stealing them."

My little spiel never fails to make parents snarky.

 

[MGlBlaze]

Yes: 3.9% (2)
Undecided: 7.8% (4)
No: 88.2% (45)

This... pretty much sums up the situation from Gamer's point of view. I'd really like to hear from the people who voted 'yes' on WHY they voted 'yes', but censoring video games and not movies, books, etc. is an ultimately fruitless and hypocritical endeavour. An R/18+ rating exists for a reason, and at the end of the day, it is up to parents to ensure their children do not play games they don't want them playing.

Theoretically. Parents here are far too busy being self-absorbed though, and so they prefer to ***** at the government until it caves in. The main reason given for not introducing an R18+ category is "Kids will play them. They'll go online and download them and parents won't know about it."

My response has always been "Well, a) if you can't trust your kid not to download and play inappropriate games, why do you let him have a computer in his bedroom and, b) downloading games is piracy, which is classified as theft and is a major crime, with a significant impact on our economy. It is entirely your responsibility to make sure your child is only playing games appropriate to their age and not stealing them."

My little spiel never fails to make parents snarky.

True, but if there are parents who can't be bothered BEING PARENTS, then that's their problem, not something for them to complain to the govornment to fix for them at the cost of even more people who shouldn't be restricted.

Also, I'd like to add an option c);
Banning a game in a country doesn't stop anyone from importing or torrenting it. Especially if it's a PC game. Therefore, not having an R/18+ rating is once again defeated, this time by the almighty Internets.

Besides, if a person's Internet is anything like mine (God-awful) then downloading it isn't exactly a fast process. If parents don't trust their kids, it's not hard to quickly drop in now and then to see what they're doing online, is it?